Customer Reviews

Promises

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is only my second book by this talented author and again I am impressed by her ability to keep me turning the pages furiously. This story delves into the painful world of divorce after 20 years and how life does indeed go on and how sometimes people are regretful but hate and anger cloud their judgement. The most touching moment in the book that really got to me was how in the end sometimes you get exactly what you thought you wanted and then find out its nothing like you thought and all you want now is to stop time, but you can't. Life can be cruel, but its only as bad as you make it. And sometimes people can't admit their wrongs and can't deal with their mistakes and find other ways of dealing with them...

~Margaret Crane is envied by alot of people. She has a comfortable and nice home with three wonderful children and a loving husband that works too much. Everything seems perfect...too perfect it seems as she wonders why her husband can't seem to get any time off of work anymore and works so late she barely sees him anymore. He seems distracted and distant. As time goes by, her husband Adam seems worried about his job and is on trips all the time, leaving Margaret alone to think...to think alot about the woman she met by accident named Randi, the woman that Adam seemed rattled by seeing after 20 years. The Other Woman.

Margaret ignores the warning signs of her failing marriage and fails to acknowledge it until her daughter sees Adam with Randi at a resteraunt and her entire life falls apart in an instant as he confesses. But Margaret is willing to give it another try and Adam also tries, but they both soon realize things are never going to be the same...Adam loves Randi.
Margaret must learn to live without him and get on with life. How can she? How can he forget 20 years of their lives together?

Adam also realizes sometimes, getting what you wished for isn't what it's all cracked up to be. And its hard to admit to a mistake, making it more difficult is seeing your ex finally getting on with her life without you in it...yet he cannot live like this. Promises...words spoken so long ago now finally make sense to him.

Tracy Talley~@

I actually think this book deserves 4 and 1/2 stars. I really enjoy Belva Plain's books and this one was really well written and very interesting, you keep turning the pages to find out what happens next. Margaret is a realistic and sympathetic character and it is interesting to see her progress and get stronger through the divorce process. Adam is the perfect example of "Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it!". I believe that the author demonstrates a realistic view of divorce, "step" situations and what it does to the children and the family and how each person's feelings are raw with emotion. I definately recommend this book, it will make you think.

Adam has a fling with Randi back in college days. He was being pressured by family and friends to marry Margaret. He meets up with Randi and believes he is in love. She seems to want him to break it off with Margaret but of course he doesn't. He acts as though he feels like he must marry Margaret because it is what his family and friends want. Yet later on in the book he claims to have fallen in love with Margaret.
Randi tells Adam that she is pregnant but that she is going to get rid of the baby because she is going to marry someone else. It seems like she is letting Adam go since he won't break off the relationship with Margaret. However I was a bit put off by her wanting to get rid of the baby especially if she loves Adam. We are not privy to Randi's thoughts though.
Years later Margaret and Adam run into Randi in New York. Randi tries to start things then when Adam searches her out. She knew he would. He is fascinated with her. She moves to Adam's home town which seems suspicious given that she never wanted to move there when they were messing around during their college days.
Adam and Randi start an affair and it seems to last a couple of years and then Margaret finds out about it. So Adam and Margaret split up and Adam has the nerve to tell his children that it has nothing to do with them. It has everything to do with them. This will affect the rest of their lives! He tells them they can count on him. But later he finds it is very difficult to maintain two households on his income and his family starts getting the short end of the stick. Only two of his children visit him the oldest doesn't want anything to do with them. She was on to him when she caught Adam and Randi out having lunch together.
Adam gets downsized at work and one could see the parallels between his job and his marriage. He had started slacking off with his work because he was spending so much time with "free spirit" Randi (coming in late and basically not carrying his wait at work). He wasn't putting much effort into his relationship with his wife when he started getting together with Randi. It was like his employer was him telling his wife he was moving on.
He buys jewelry for Randi, helps to take on her mortgage, and they go on a trip while his family is struggling to eat, run around in a beat up car that is falling apart, having to sale the family home, and being unable to do other things.
Randi doesn't seem to sympathetic for some reason she thought he was a big shot. That he had more money or something. Then she decides that he would have more money if that "bloodsucker" ex of his would keep her hands out of his pockets. The children hear her say these things and she doesn't seem to care. She knew Adam had kids and responsibilities when she hooked up with him.
He finally opens his eyes up about Randi when she lets some things slip. He couldn't seem to handle the things that he did. He gave up his children his home life for her and he was sorry. He felt contempt for himself as well as for Randi. He felt that Margaret had moved on and he didn't seem to know how to get back what he threw away for what he believed was love. So he did something that seems very weak and just finished it.

The story of a woman who faces an ugly truth - her husband's betrayal, as her happy marriage is eroded. There's temptation, passionate romance, and betrayal wrapped up in an engrossing story of an extended family and how people respond to changes in their lives, including destruction of their expectations.

A quick, easy read, and an interesting story. As always with Plain, it's well written, with good character depth as she pulls you quickly in, and you come to really care what will happen to the individuals involved.

Belva Plain's books are always great drama, hard to put down, and make good summer reading; this is a good selection to take to the beach. If you like Danielle Steele, you'll enjoy this novel.

This was my first time reading a Belva Plain book, and I truly enjoyed it. I have read many books about women whose husbands are cheating on them, or are going through a divorce, but none have delved as deeply into the characters raw emotions as this one. For the first time I can honestly say I felt the pain of the wife as her marriage was changing, and I felt the heartwrenching pain of discovering your husband has been cheating on you. A really fine example of a romance/drama. Recommended highly.

This is about real life, whatever some others reviewers say. All teenage boys should read this - this is what happens ultimately if one ignores timeless wisdom and falls victim to trendy, "situation morality". I wish I had read this when I was younger, it might have helped me get my morality straighter earlier in my life.

I normally don't like books of this nature. But Promises, was a pure tear jerker. I was thoroughly impressed with the story line. I totally agree with the reader who said that they have seen and read the old "I can't pretend any longer that I have loved you" routine. In this case, It was the same old routine; but, it was very touching and a lot more realistic. And for once the women who got left out in the cold, finally found some happiness.

This book was astonishing in its realistic description of the break-up of a marriage. A lot of books have been written on this topic, but I can't recall ever reading one that came closer to the mark. After finishing the book, I felt as though I had come to know the characters; in their pain, their triumphs, their frustrations, their ambivalence. This author truly writes from the heart.

How can a book about such a painful topic as divorce be such a page-turner, and I'm tempted to say, entertaining? I have no answer to that, but can only say that I found this book totally absorbing and almost impossible to put down. Cliché it may be, but it kept me awake till early morning the two nights it took me to finish it.

No two relationships are the same. No two divorces are the same. So also in this case. Margareth and Adam have known each other since childhood and are, so to speak, destined to marry. Adam, finishing university before they are to marry, meets Randi and falls in love. But Randi does not want to wait for Adam to pick up the courage to break it off with Margareth, and leaves him.

So the wedding between Margareth and Adam goes forward as planned. They move into Margareth's childhood home, get three nice children and seemingly enjoy a perfectly happy family life in the small town of Elmsford.

Until one day on a trip to New York, Margareth and Adam meet Randi. Recently widowed, Randi sets out to win Adam back. She moves to a small town close to the family and of course, manages to entice Adam into an intoxicating affair. Totally different from solid, kind, pretty Margareth, Randi is an exciting, alluring, sexy, rather crude woman, who knows all Adam's weaknesses and has little regard for his responsibilities toward his wife and young children.

A parallell story takes place in addition. Nina, orphaned at an early age, has grown up with Margareth as a combination of mother, sister and friend. Nina is a striking and talented interior decorator who goes to New York where she gets involved with a married man.

Belva Plain gives a very detailed picture both of Margareth and Adam's divorce and Nina's experience of being the - if mislead - intruder. Marriage, duties, temptation, unfaithfullness - and healing. Life goes on, but will never be the same.

As always, Belva Plain writes extremely well. The characterization in this book is very strong. How Margareth suspects but chooses to trust and even protect, her husband. How Nina believes completely and needs proof, the naked truth, in order to see.

As the saying goes: "Everyone is blind when maddened by love", or rather, "when maddened by falling in love". And the cost may be excruciating.

This book takes a look at the destruction of a marriage like no book I have ever read before. I cried right along with Margaret, hating the Other Woman to no end. While at times the language is outmoded, this book is still a very powerful depiction of some very painful subject matter. Get out the Kleenex!